


Story Included

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Family Issues, First Meetings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Lesbian Character, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: Ever since Jack was born, Lily’s been fighting to be noticed.Or so she assumes. She wasn’t even two at the time, but she can picture the scene – the hospital, her mother in labor, her father murmuring hushed words in her mother’s ear, and Lily sitting with a coloring book in the hallway, forgotten for now, even by the nurses rushing through the halls.This probably didn’t happen, but it’s still how Lily pictures it.





	Story Included

**Author's Note:**

> Did someone say projection???
> 
> I love Lily Wright so much, she is my angry lesbian wife. I projected everything I've ever felt onto her, particularly my large, gaping, life-defining sibling issues. When will I write something short? Never, apparently, but that's okay, I had a lot of projecting to do. 
> 
> Also, while I'm here, go read quietlittlevoices' X Files AU! I'm literally dying over it, guys, it's so good and hits all of my sweet spots. And it's only gonna get better from here. But go read it, please, for me. But also read this! And comment if you like it, I love validation.

Ever since Jack was born, Lily’s been fighting to be noticed.

Or so she assumes. She wasn’t even two at the time, but she can picture the scene – the hospital, her mother in labor, her father murmuring hushed words in her mother’s ear, and Lily sitting with a coloring book in the hallway, forgotten for now, even by the nurses rushing through the halls.

This probably didn’t happen, but it’s still how Lily pictures it.

The thing is, their roles have always been clear, for as long as Lily can remember – Jack’s always been perfect, born with a halo around his head, he can do no wrong.  Jack could get away with anything, just flash a bright, toothy grin and everyone would melt. When he was a kid, it was parents and teachers and even the other kids, he was magnetic – everyone loved him.

Even Lily loved him, even if she spent most of their childhood trying to wreck that perfect image, make Jack do something that would make the parents and teachers and kids angry at him, but she can’t ever remember Jack being yelled at, not once. He never got in trouble like Lily.

Jack was everyone’s favorite – her parents most of all, but everyone’s. Jack and Lily were only a year apart in high school, and all of Lily’s friends thought Lily’s little brother was just the cutest. They’d almost always want to hang out with him, leaving Lily detached and dissatisfied on the outskirts of the conversation that Jack, in all his glowing golden glory, was more than happy to have.

It wasn’t Jack’s fault that he was perfect, as Lily often had to remind herself – there were no faults in Jack, no cracks, nothing lying underneath the surface, not like with Lily.

Lily tried to set herself apart, do something incredible too, and it wasn’t that people didn’t like her, only that they liked Jack _more_. Lily could never compete with him in those terms – Jack was so bright, so smart, so athletic and handsome and talented. Lily was pretty. Lily had a group of friends. Lily was a good writer on the school newspaper. Lily knocked it out of the park on the debate team. But she wasn’t the one winning the football championships.

For the first sixteen years of her life, she deals with this one way – by believing wholeheartedly that she was Jack’s opposite. Which doesn’t mean they don’t get along, it just means they don’t have a lot to talk about. Jack goes to football practice; Lily goes to debate practice. They do homework in the living room together afterwards and make grunting noises in each other’s direction and make each other bring them food, and that’s the extent of it.

And it works, for a while.

But when she’s sixteen and Jack’s fifteen, Jack comes to the student newspaper classroom after school – they just have a classroom to hang out in that’s one of the English rooms during the day, they hardly have a budget, no one cares about a tiny program like this with half a dozen people – and Lily’s editor, Molly elbows her in the stomach.

“Is that your brother?” Molly says under her breath with a skeptical raised eyebrow as Jack waves at Lily and comes closer to them. “What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno,” Lily mutters back before turning to Jack. “Hey, loser. What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Jack says with a shrug of his shoulders. “But I know you guys are really overloaded right now since there’s only like five of you, and I’m not playing basketball this season, so I was wondering if you’d let me write for the paper. I can give you a writing sample or –”

“You wanna be like, a sports reporter or something?” Molly asks, a suspicious look on her face. “Paul already does sports.”

“Since when are you not playing basketball?” Lily doesn’t give Jack a chance to answer Molly’s question. “Dad was just talking the other day about the next season –”

Jack turns red. Lily’s not used to that. “Um, Dad doesn’t know I’m not playing. Don’t – don’t tell him yet, alright? I’m gonna break the news to him this weekend.”

“He’s not gonna take that well,” Lily says, slightly alarmed. Jack’s never done anything that their dad wouldn’t like before – not like this.

“I know,” Jack says with a wince. “But – but I wanna write for the paper instead. And it doesn’t have to be sports reporting. I’d prefer it not be, actually. Anything you guys need.”

“Well, you could –” Molly starts but Lily interrupts.

“I’m covering for arts right now because we don’t have anyone else,” Lily says. “You want arts, you can have it.”

She expects Jack to say no, but instead Jack smiles at her without the slightest hesitation. “Awesome, that’s great! When are your meetings again?”

Lily has to admit, at that point, that they aren’t polarized magnets, that there’s a similarity somewhere between them, even if she doesn’t know exactly what it is, even if Jack’s reasons for quitting basketball are vague at best, as he blushes and stammers every time she asks.

Jack doesn’t stop with that, though, and by the end of the year he’s quit track and field too, and Lily’s pretty sure he only sticks with football because their dad would never forgive him for quitting football when he shows such a talent for it.

(After he graduated, Jack was supposed to get a football scholarship. But he won’t. He’ll get one for journalism instead. Lily doesn’t think her father has ever forgiven him.)

Jack ends up writing for the paper, playing drums in the school band, painting sets for the school play, moving beyond the popular football player trope from teen movies and into the most well-liked guy in the school. Not just popular, but _liked._

Lily’s never been either of those things.

She can’t be angry at Jack for being perfect, and can’t be angry at him for having something in common with her, since they spend so much more time together, so much time _closer_ because Jack quit team sports and came to the newspaper to be with Lily – but what she _needs_ is to be different, set apart, unique, somehow having an identity outside of Jack.

When Jack started high school, he was _Lily Wright’s brother._ By the time Lily’s a senior, she’s _Jack Wright’s sister._

Something doesn’t seem right about that.

So just before her senior year, she sits at the dinner table with her parents and says something she thought she’d end up saying after she graduated college and didn’t have to depend on her parents for anything.

 “Hey, I just want you both to know, I’m a lesbian. And I don’t care what you think of that.”

Her parents gape. Jack’s fork clatters to his plate. There’s a screaming match. Lily isn’t kicked out, but the frosty silence from both of her parents continues for the rest of the year. For the rest of her life, actually, but that last year at home is what eats at her insides.

That whole year, her parents barely speak to her. After she asks the hairdresser for the dykiest haircut possible, her teachers don’t make eye contact with her. Most students don’t make eye contact with her. Even her friends distance themselves.

She doesn’t graduate as _Jack Wright’s sister._ She graduates as _that super bitchy dyke who can’t take a joke._

But Jack’s not like the rest. Lily can’t even hate him for this, because Jack treats her just the same, the same sarcasm, the same affection, the same everything.

Jack loves her, Jack told her that he loves her more than anything, no matter what, always, and Lily can’t hate him, no matter what she does, she just can’t hate him. No matter how different, no matter how similar, Lily just can’t hate him.

But at least now, she has something of her own.

* * *

 

Lily goes to college halfway across the country. Her parents help financially, and that’s the extent of their relationship. If they pay for out of state tuition, they never have to see her on the holidays.

She knew in her bones that leaving her parents was the right decision, and she started out feeling like leaving Jack was right, too. She finally had a chance to know people who didn’t automatically associate her with him, to have an identity of her very own.

But her identity has always, _will always,_ be so endlessly embroiled with Jack’s, she feels like part of her is missing without him there.

She’s Jack Wright’s sister. She always feels like Jack Wright’s sister, even when Jack is thousands of miles away.

But apparently Jack can’t shake being Lily Wright’s brother, because he’s there at school with her the next year, with his fresh, shiny journalism scholarship.

Lily hadn’t gotten that scholarship. That eats at her self-esteem most every day, but having Jack here, present, with her – it’s somehow better anyway. They do better together.

“Is it cool?” Jack had asked her on a phone call before he moved out of their parents’ house in California. “I know I kind of just like, accepted that scholarship and didn’t even talk to you about it, but like – you don’t have to see me if you don’t want to. It’s a big campus. I can avoid you.”

“No,” Lily said, laughing. “Jack, seriously, it doesn’t bother me. It’s been – well, kind of a lonely year here for me.”

Lily doesn’t usually admit things like that. She hates showing weakness, but it’s different with Jack because Jack’s the same way as her. The same temperament. One of those strands of similarities in all of their differences.

“Really? You never said,” Jack says, sounding a little hurt, and Lily just sighs. “I mean, I thought it would be better – you’d have more freedom, get to be away from our homophobic parents…”

“Just because I’m away from our parents doesn’t mean I’m away from homophobia,” Lily laughs uncomfortably, thinking about how most of that homophobia was mainly locked up in her own body, telling her she didn’t deserve anything more than what she already had. “But I’ve been alone most of the year and – well, it’d be nice not to be alone anymore. Not that you’re great company or anything…”

She throws in the insult to harden her soft voice, and Jack laughs because he knows that tactic.

Jack comes to school with her, and Lily realizes how much she missed him the second he got there.

* * *

 

Lily’s making out with Allison against one of the equipment shelves until Jack throws a pen at them.

“The key,” Jack says blankly as Allison pulls away but Lily dives back in just to be annoying. “The fucking key to the booth, Lily, I swear to God.”

“You’re not any better,” Lily reluctantly lets go of her girlfriend, who’s laughing at the two of them with a barely concealed smile. “Every time I go back to the apartment, you and Mary are horizontal on the couch.”

“Gross,” Allison deadpans and Jack just rolls his eyes.

“Exaggeration,” Jack informs Allison. “The key to the booth, Lily, I’m on in three minutes.”

“And I’m your boss, so it’s not like you’re gonna get in trouble,” Lily pulls the key out of the desk drawer anyway, tossing it Jack, who catches it with ease.

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” Jack says with a wave as he leaves the office and heads in the direction of the college radio booth.

The college radio office is Lily’s favorite place to be. She hosts the primetime slot with Alex in the evenings, and Jack is on right before her. She thought she’d find the most home at the school’s newspaper, but it’s the radio station that’s the most fun. Last year when Clarissa graduated, she’d recommended Lily to be the general manager, a job Lily actually felt fully at home with.

She’s twenty-one, a year from graduating with honors, with a hot girlfriend and a great job, plus an internship at an actual radio station in town to make the right connections to keep doing this for the rest of her life, and she finally feels like something incredible is happening to her life.

That’s when Sammy Stevens first enters it – twenty-one year old Lily thinks it’s just another great thing to add to the list of great things in her life and not what’s going to bring it all crashing to a grinding halt.

She’ll know soon enough, but for now, Sammy Stevens is awkwardly standing in the doorway of Lily’s office space, long and gangly with a threadbare Led Zeppelin t-shirt and looking entirely out of place.

“Hey, what’s up?” Lily asks, and Allison waves on her way out. Lily quickly calls to her “I’ll see you for dinner tonight, yeah, babe?”

“Sounds good,” Allison says cheerily as she leaves.

Sammy, not that Lily has any idea who he is yet, stands there blushing and Lily thinks for half a second that he’s some homophobe, but decides not to yell at him right away and let him talk.

“Hey, I’m Sammy? Sammy Stevens?” Sammy says with an awkward kind of grimace. “I have a screening test for the radio station with uh, Lily Wright?”

“That’s me,” Lily says, wishing that she had a nameplate on her desk she could gesture to like a real hotshot. “Yeah, I remember you, you sent in an application, right?” 

Lily vaguely remembered a Samuel in her application stack, figured they were one and the same. She chose him for screening, so he must have something about him, even if she couldn’t exactly remember what that thing was.

But then Sammy Stevens shed his awkward exterior the second the screen test began, his voice switching into something cool and smooth and confident, “This is Sammy Stevens, you’re listening to WQPS, real college radio. We’re coming at you live from campus, bringing you all the best in music and news.”

Lily bounces a couple of challenges off of him in the screen test, but there’s an eloquence to Sammy that Lily just wasn’t expecting, and by the end of the test, when Sammy’s looking uncomfortable again, Lily says “Hey, so you’ve got the job for sure, that’s a better screen test than I’ve seen in years – you wanna just head into the booth now to get some practice? Jack’s in there, he’s been doing it a couple years, and can take you through any rough patches.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sammy’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. “Sure…I…I mean, are you sure?”

“Word of advice, don’t ask that at your future job interviews,” Lily says, and she thinks it was kindly even if Sammy’s expression is still more than a little intimidated. “Don’t worry, I’m the scary one here, Jack’s the nicest guy in the world. I’ll get you your own timeslot once you’ve clocked in enough hours with me or Jack or Colin. It’ll probably be a graveyard shift to start, but you can work your way up. Now go on, tell Jack I sent you.”

Sammy grins, bright and fleeting and scared as hell, and goes into the booth.

* * *

 

Lily doesn’t really think about it after that, knows that Sammy’s clocking in a bunch of hours with Jack over the next couple weeks, and she’s added him to the staff email list, but figures that she’ll reach out once he’s gotten in all of his hours.

But then she’s hanging out with Jack at the café next to the building that houses the radio station before their respective shifts and Jack’s like “Hey, so the new guy? Sammy?”

“Yeah, sorry I pawned him off on you,” Lily says with an apologetic wave of her hand. “I told him he could hang with me and Colin too, but I noticed he’s only ever done hours with you. Let me know if you need me to –”

“No, no,” Jack cuts her off, laughing. “Lily, I _love_ Sammy. He’s awesome. I was wondering if he could like, keep hosting with me after his training hours are done.”

“Oh,” Lily says, a little surprised. Everyone loves Jack, but it isn’t often that Jack attaches himself to other people. Another similarity of theirs, but an innocuous one that wasn’t noticeable to onlookers. “I can’t show favoritism like that, new guys always start on the graveyard.”

“Okay, I figured, I can switch to the graveyard shift then,” Jack says as if it’s nothing, taking a drink of his coffee, and Lily stares.

“You’re telling me you’d switch to a shift in the middle of the night,” Lily says slowly, “just to keep hosting with….Sammy Stevens?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, not blinking, as if Lily’s the one missing something here.

“Look, he had a great interview and test, but like – he was super awkward.”

“You’ve met him once, and you scare the hell out of everyone,” Jack rolls his eyes. “He’s great, he just doesn’t really like meeting new people.”

“Alright,” Lily says slowly, blinking at her brother slowly, wondering what the hell took him over. “I guess I’ll put you down for the midnight to two AM shift from now on, though I have no idea why.”

“Sweet,” Jack smiles over at her winningly.

Well, maybe it’s good that she doesn’t understand something about Jack for a change of pace instead of knowing instinctively what he’s thinking and feeling.

She doesn’t get it for the next few weeks – she’s talked to Sammy in the studio a couple times, and he’s definitely better as an acquired taste, and he looks at Jack like everyone looks at Jack – like Jack’s perfect.

The weird thing is that Jack’s looking at Sammy the same way, though Lily ignores that with a bit of unease.

But one night when she can’t sleep and knows that Jack’s at the radio station, she goes into the kitchen and turns the dial on the handheld radio they keep on the counter and changes it to the right station.

“– _welcome back to the Haunted Hellmouth, ladies and gents, this is Jack Wright –”_

_“ – and Sammy Stevens, along with a healthy dose of copyright infringement.”_

_“Oh, fine, ruin my fun, Giles.”_

_“I’m not Giles, oh my God.”_

_“That’s right, you’re not Giles, you’re Scully, here in our nightly Ghosts and Goblins segment.”_

_“Wherein Jack informs you, the unwitting audience, of whatever supernatural spectacle he’s obsessed with, and I debunk it with no tools other than sarcasm and the power of my brain.”_

_“So just sarcasm, then.”_

Lily’s practically falling down laughing by the time their segment ends, and she realizes that Sammy isn’t just good – _Sammy and Jack_ are good. Together. The way Sammy talks to Jack reminds her of the familiarity that _she_ has with Jack. They have the kind of natural chemistry that leads to radio-worthy banter that Lily loves to hear, wants to be a part of someday.

And maybe – just maybe – this could be her chance at something like that.

* * *

 

She decides not to tell them, and the next night, comes to the station announced at midnight.

“Surprise inspection,” Lily announces to Jack and Sammy who are standing outside of the booth waiting to go in for their shift, and Lily notices that they’re sharing a cup of coffee and files that information away.

“I didn’t think surprise inspections were a part your job,” Jack says, deadpan, with a raised eyebrow that says he isn’t buying her bullshit, but that’s fine, he doesn’t need to buy it.

“New policy, instituted by me,” Lily smirks at him, not bothering to hide the fact that she’s not being transparent here. “Go on, I’m coming with you.”

Jack raises an eyebrow at her, Sammy doesn’t really look at her, but they let her follow them into the studio as Chuck finishes up his shift, and Lily pulls a chair over to the same side of the desk as Sammy sits. Jack’s working the sound board, because he likes producing too for some reason.

“What’s up folks, it’s midnight on campus and you know what that means…” Jack starts as the last song Chuck put on fades out.

“You’re live with Jack and Sammy, as well as special guest, Lily Wright,” Sammy says, “who I know as my boss, though Jack knows as his older sister.”

“ _And_ my boss,” Jack cuts in, giving Lily a pointed look. “Makes family dinners complicated.”

“I only threaten to fire him twice a day,” Lily says. “And disown him twice a week.”

“We’re both already practically disowned,” Jack rolls his eyes, “so she’s not gonna leave me by my lonesome when neither of us are welcome at home.”

“Touchy subject?” Sammy’s eyes go from Jack’s to Lily’s, not showing any discomfort but clearly letting them know they don’t have to talk about it especially on the radio.

But what Lily’s good at is being open and honest and blunt and _out_. It’s what sets her apart from the crowd. “I’m gay and Jack hates football.”

“These are equally horrendous crimes in the eyes of our dear father,” Jack says to Sammy, half-hiding a laugh, because the way they deal with this is with jokes, and Jack seems to be letting Sammy in on that joke. “

“Well, they’ll get over you someday, but never me, so don’t pretend we’re equals here,” Lily says, half-joking and half-serious.

Jack, to his credit, immediately says, with an air of finality and solidarity, “Well, I don’t plan on finding out.”

“My dad’s the same way,” Sammy says after a second, light as them. “But with business school. Apparently the trademark of real men everywhere is a business degree.”

“Don’t forget emotional repression,” Lily chimes in. “I won’t say present company excluded, because Jack loves repressing shit, and I don’t really know you, Sammy. Though I feel like I’m getting to know you better by the second.”

“You too, Lily,” Sammy says, and his smile seems genuine. “We’ll start a bad fathers club.”

“Isn’t that just all strip joints?” Jack muses. “Not that I think starting our own strip joint is a bad idea, but I think we’re all a little more suited for broadcast journalism.”

“Is that what we do, broadcast journalism?” Sammy snorts. “I thought we spread campus gossip, talked about ghostly sightings, and played NSYNC songs.”

“We play one song a night to remind ourselves of the sacrifices they made for us,” Jack says solemnly. “They really did pull a Jesus Christ and die for our sins.”

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Lily uses his own words against him with a shake of her head in Sammy’s direction. “You deal with this every night, Sammy?”

“Unfortunately,” Sammy hides a smile, but he doesn’t make it sound unfortunate at all.

Lily spends the next two hours in the studio with them, and it’s the quickest any studio time has ever gone by. Once the two AM hosts arrive, Lily pops the tape they played and takes it back to their office, Jack and Sammy trailing behind her, still laughing about their latest joke.

“You gonna tell us what this is about?” Jack asks, poking his head into Lily’s office after her. “Not that that wasn’t fun or anything…”

“I want to listen,” Lily presses play on the tape, lets the three of their voices fill the room. “See how it sounds.”

Jack and Sammy look confused, and a little uncomfortable at hearing the sounds of their own voices for a couple minutes, but it isn’t long before the looks on their faces clear up.

“This…is really good,” Jack says, looking from Lily to Sammy. “Like. I listen to a _lot_ of radio. And this sounds _great_. This sounds like….three friends just shooting the shit, but somehow…structured? It’s like, genuinely entertaining.”

“That’s what I thought,” Lily nods excitedly. “That’s what I heard when it was just the two of you. I wanted to hear what it was like with me, too. To see if it still worked.”

“To see if what still worked?” Sammy asks, but he doesn’t sound suspicious, more excited and nervous than anything.

“This…vibe, I don’t know,” Lily waves her hand. “I think the three of us could really make something. Like, after we graduate, at a real station. We could do something with whatever this is, whatever we’ve got.”

Jack’s face splits into a beaming smile. “I think you’re right, this is – this is so snappy and fast and personal, I just – it really is something, huh?”

They both turn to Sammy, who shrugs a little sheepishly. “I mean, this is the first time I’ve been on the radio. It’s not always like this?”

“No way,” Jack says and Lily shakes her head. “Come on, Sammy. Let’s try?”

Jack sounds almost nervous, and Sammy grins like Jack hung the moon. “Yeah, alright, let’s try it. See how it goes.”

Lily beams, victorious. They order pizza, get drunk in Lily’s office together, bright and happy and talking about everything they could do together if they tried.

It’s something Lily wants, more than anything. To make a career in radio, to do it with her brother, to do this together. And with a stranger that somehow Lily felt like she was already making a slot for in her life.

There’s a part of Lily that Lily doesn’t want to recognize that’s telling her that she’s always been scared of Jack’s success, and if she ties herself to him, then at least their successes will match one another. If they’re always together then Jack can’t be better than her.

She shoves that part down, though. It’s not as important as the future, looking vast and wide and bright in front of her.

* * *

 

Soon, it’s not just a radio show that ties Lily to Sammy Stevens. It isn’t long before he’s her best friend, and Lily’s not the kind of person who’s ever had a best friend.

Of course he’s Jack’s best friend first and foremost, and Lily can’t even bring herself to be jealous of that – the list of people who would rather spend time with her than Jack is pretty limited to Allison, and even her girlfriend can sometimes be a toss-up in that debate, because everyone loves Jack.

But Sammy loves Lily too, and the list of similarities between them doesn’t bother Lily like they do with Jack. Sammy’s stubbornness and tenacity make her feel less alone in the world, not like she has less of a unique identity.

Lily graduates a year before the two of them, but that gives her time to harass radio executives into giving her a timeslot. She spends less time with Jack and Sammy then, but they still host the college show just the two of them, and Lily tries not to be jealous of all the time they spend without here.

It actually isn’t much, since Jack had insisted they find a three-bedroom apartment for that year so they could all live together, so Lily spent half her day with the two of them no matter what.

 She and Allison are in the kitchen a couple weeks before she, Sammy, and Jack are all set to graduate – and Lily’s been thinking about asking Allison to move in with them next year, and kind of freaking out over that – and Sammy wanders in wearing an overlarge hoodie that looks like Jack’s.

“What’s up?” Sammy grunts in Lily and Allison’s direction, ignoring the fact that they’re making out against the counter. “You’re blocking the way to the fridge.”

“Your voice sounds awful,” Lily stops kissing Allison for a second to give Sammy a glare. He’s bad at taking care of himself, especially when he’s sick, but usually Jack handles that and makes him eat enough. “Did you swallow a couple thousand frogs since I’ve seen you last?”

“He’s just given lots of blowjobs this week,” Allison jokes with a wink at Sammy, but Sammy freezes in place, his eyes going wide.

Lily doesn’t think much of the joke, it’s pretty par for the course as far as Allison’s jokes go, but Sammy starts making gaping noises like a dying fish.

“What?” Allison asks, eyes going from Sammy to Lily. “It was a joke. I mean, now I totally think you really _did_ give a lot of blowjobs this week, but…”

Lily winces, because this situation isn’t getting any better, but at least none of it is her fault when usually any social faux pas is.

“I – no – I don’t –” Sammy finally starts getting words out, though they’re very strangled. He abruptly starts backing away and he’s practically sprinting back down the hallway in the next millisecond.

“That was awkward,” Lily says slowly and Allison turns to her with an apologetic, confused glance.

“It was just a joke,” Allison says weakly. “I mean – he’s gay, isn’t he? Or did I read him wrong?”

“Sammy?” Lily starts to laugh, but then stops herself. “I mean….I actually have no idea. We’ve never talked about it. I guess I just assumed – but then again, he hasn’t had a girlfriend as long as I’ve known him. I really do have…no idea.”

“I always thought he was,” Allison says, shrugging her shoulders. “He just has a vibe, you know?”

Lily frowns. She’s always considered herself as being pretty good at identifying people like her, but maybe she knows Sammy a little _too_ well for that.

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Lily decides. “Be back in a minute.”

She heads down the hallway, knocks once on Sammy’s door, says “Don’t be masturbating!” and opens it.

Sammy’s sitting on the edge of his bed, body curled tightly in on itself, breathing like he just ran a marathon. He looks up at Lily with a grimace.

“So,” Lily says, shutting the door behind her and sitting on the edge of Sammy’s bed. “What was that about?”

Sammy doesn’t answer at first, and Lily uses the time to think about Sammy and how he’s always seemed too big for his own skin, like there was so much of him inside that just wasn’t being let out.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Lily tries again. “I just – you know. Wanted to make sure you were alright, and – you know. That….that we don’t care if you’re. You know.”

Lily can usually be pretty blunt, and knows that Sammy’s the same way, but it’s hard to be blunt about something like this.

“I wasn’t giving blowjobs,” Sammy says suddenly. “I really am just sick.”

Lily holds in a laugh. “Alright, I believe you. For now.”

Sammy half-smiles at her. Lily pats his leg in a rare show of physical affection.

“You’re alright,” Lily says quietly.

“No one’s ever…” Sammy trails off, visibly uncomfortable, muscles taut under his skin.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Lily promises. “Neither will Allison. Okay? Not even Jack, if you don’t want. But Jack will be cool with it too, I promise. I’ll bully him into it if he isn’t already, alright? But he will be.”

“Don’t tell him for now,” Sammy says, looking at his hands. “I will, eventually, but…I’ll work my way up to it.”

“Okay,” Lily says, taking a second to squeeze Sammy’s hand with her own. “It’s all good, Stevens, I promise. You ever need to talk…”

“Don’t say that,” Sammy makes a face. “You’re so bad at talking about other people’s problems.”

“Not when it’s this,” Lily says, and intends it like a promise, but for now, she leaves Sammy by himself to process.

Lily expects a rush of disappointment at having something that’s always been uniquely hers being taken away, but that doesn’t happen with Sammy. It’s like being blunt or angry or tenacious – it feels good to have something in common with someone, especially when that someone is Sammy, especially when that something is sexuality.

At least she has an explanation for how she and Sammy became friends now – because there’s no way Lily would ever make friends with a straight guy of her own volition. Jack was assigned to her, he barely counted.

* * *

 

Lily gets to keep living in a dream for the next four years, the best four years of her life. She has a radio show with her brother and her best friend on one of the most popular AM stations in the city, and it’s her ambition that got her there. Jack and Sammy are along for the ride, but she’s the one who got the three of them this timeslot, and she feels important because of it. She loves what she does. She loves her brother. She loves her best friend.

She has an amazing girlfriend who she has an apartment with, and a little yappy dog that Allison loves and Lily loves for Allison’s sake. They have plants that sit in windowsills and Lily knows how to cook tortellini. Jack and Sammy live two blocks away, bicker with her constantly, but they’re there with her, behind her no matter what.

 The beginning of the end, tragically enough, begins with an engagement ring.

It’s Lily’s; Allison asked and even though it still wasn’t legal here yet, it would be someday, they both knew they could wait as long as it took.

That was something beautiful. That was something incredible.

That was something that caused an irreparable rift, because that’s when the whispers started.

Lily hadn’t ever stopped being out, but she stopped being quite so out when she started her professional career. It wasn’t that she was ashamed, or that she wouldn’t answer honestly if anyone asked, but just that she was a pragmatist who knew it was sometimes better not to mention a girlfriend.

But she could tell, from the second she mentioned her fiancée, and everyone knew that it was a woman, that it was going to turn into a problem.

Her coworkers gave her looks in the halls; her bosses looked as if they were ready to go to war every time they had a meeting about the latest projections of their show.

Lily didn’t care at first, because she’d been dealing with shit like this all her life. But it was when she walked into her and Jack and Sammy’s shared office space to hear Jack saying, hushed “ _Lily’s going to take this badly no matter –”_

“What?” Lily snaps, setting her purse down on her desk with a bang, turning to Jack and Sammy with a glare, who sprang away from each other with guilty looks. “What is it?”

They exchanged a look, which made Lily even angrier. “Let’s talk about this outside of the office,” Jack says quietly, restrainedly, and Lily laughs with pointed bitterness.

“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say here,” Lily says, making eye contact with Sammy specifically because he’s never been one to beat around the bush, and she thought he of all people would understand. “I didn’t think the two of you of all people would have a problem with my engagement.”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. “Lily, that’s not it, that’s not it at all, it’s just –”

He breaks off with a sigh, and then reaches across to his desk to take an envelope off of it, and hands it to her wordlessly.

Lily takes it, snaps the letter open and reads it. It doesn’t make her feel better. It makes her feel like she’s boiling over with rage.

“They’re _demoting_ us?” Lily practically seethes. “Splitting up our show? What the _fuck_?”

“They want Jack to produce the afternoon show,” Sammy says with a tight voice, “and they want us anywhere but evening report.”

Lily’s blood runs cold. “Is this because of me and Allison? Are these fuckers really pulling this? What’s their fucking reasoning, HR will never –”

“It’s not that,” Jack starts, but Sammy gives him a warning glance so he corrects himself to “it’s not _just_ that.”

 “What the fuck else could it be?” Lily asks. “I do great work. The two of you do great work. How else but fucking homophobia –”

There’s a set in Jack’s jaw. “Oh, I think it’s still homophobia.”

“What do you mean?” Lily says, then realizes, and rounds on Sammy, who looks deeply uncomfortable, much more so than she’s ever seen him. “Sammy? Did something happen?”

“Yeah,” Sammy says, clearing his throat, voice not quite present, again making eye contact with Jack.

Jack sighs, pressing his fingers to his temples. “Lily, it was – it was both of us. Someone caught us – together.”

It takes Lily’s brain half a second to catch up.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, “but _what_? The two of you?”

Jack nods, won’t make eye contact. Sammy looks as if he’s about to vomit.

“How long?” Lily asks, blood rushing through her head, making it difficult to stand without feeling dizzy, thinking that this was some kind of joke, that they couldn’t be serious, but they were, they so obviously _were._

 Jack grimaces. “Three years. Give or take.”

“What the _fuck?_ ” Lily asks, anger still the only emotion she has room for. “You’ve been – three years – and you didn’t tell me? Some homophobic dick who works in radio found out before I did? And then demotes us because of it?”

“The official reason is creative differences,” Sammy says quietly. “Not that it would be illegal to put the real reason.”

“Fuck,” Lily says under her breath. “I can’t believe the two of you.”

“What, you’re angry at us for being caught or for not telling you?” Jack asks, his voice tight, and Lily could kill him.

“Both,” she says, and then stops herself before she can say something she’ll regret. “What did you get caught doing, exactly?”

Sammy looks at the floor. Jack sighs. “Just kissing in the car in the parking lot. But it was two of the execs who saw us. Called us into a meeting yesterday, said we could stay on if we split up. Including you. Said they didn’t like how you’d stopped being discreet, said it was bad for the company. If none of us ever interact with each other or talk about this at work ever again…”

He trails off.

“I’m quitting,” Sammy says, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “I can’t – I can’t fucking handle this, I have to get out of this place.”

“Probably the best option,” Jack nods, and a new rush of righteous anger boils up in Lily’s stomach.

“What?” She snorts. “You’re quitting because something is hard? Because someone might judge you? See you just for your sexuality? I’ve been dealing with that since I was sixteen fucking years old. And that’s only since I’ve been out, I’ve been gay all my life –”

“Yeah well, so have I,” Jack says, anger in his voice as well. “Not that you ever noticed or anything.”

Lily could strangle him, she really could, even as she flashes back throughout all their lives and wondered how the hell she didn’t _know_.

But then again, she doesn’t have to confront that reality if she doesn’t feel like it.

“The fuck you are,” Lily says instead. “I believe you’re sleeping with Stevens – the two of you have always been way closer than any straight friends in the history of time – but not always. Not back in high school. You’re –”

Jack laughs, loud and bitter. “Yeah, Lily. Back in high school. Always. I didn’t think I’d have to explain to you of all people –”

“Well, maybe you repressed the hell out of it, I don’t know,” Lily says. “But at least back then – God, you were always so perfect, you couldn’t have known or else you would’ve been like me, spent all your free time hating yourself –”

“You don’t think I hated myself? Jesus Christ, Lily, you know why I quit basketball? Because there was a guy on the basketball who called me a fag every hour, and if I didn’t play basketball, I wouldn’t ever have to see him. That was the only sport I played in high school that I even liked.”

“Get off it, you were perfect,” Lily mutters, and something in Jack’s face seems to snap in that instant.

“That’s always it with you, isn’t it? That I’m perfect and you’re not?” Jack’s face twists furiously. “Newsflash, Lily. I’m not perfect. Far fucking from it, so don’t give me that excuse.”

“Just stop, both of you,” Sammy finally inserts himself, and Lily suddenly turns on him, remembering that at least half of her rage can be directed at him.

“Rich coming from you, Stevens, the world’s biggest fucking closet case,” Lily practically snarls. “Or, I guess, biggest other than Jack. You want to quit, of course you do, you’ve always been such a goddamn coward –”

“Shut up,” Jack interrupts, face set in a firm line. “You’re missing the point. The point is that we’re on thin fucking ice here, and we’re bound to get fired unless we toe the line. Let’s go – go somewhere else.”

“Where?” Lily snorts. “This is the best radio station around –”

“We can move, go to a bigger city,” Jack starts, and Lily snaps.

“Absolutely not,” Lily says. “I have a life here. I’m getting _married_ here.”

“Except you can’t, because it’s not legal,” Sammy mutters under his breath and Lily almost hits him, would have hit him if Jack hadn’t grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

“And I don’t want to,” Lily says. “I’m standing my fucking ground. That’s who I am. I’ll stay at this goddamn radio station until I die just to spite those fuckers. No one can tell me who and what to be, or where to go. The fact that the two of you are big enough coward not to tell your sister of all people that you’re fucking is ridiculous. No wonder you can’t handle anything. Get the fuck out of here if it matters that much to you.”

The three of them all glare. Lily goes to sit at her desk. She’ll be the last one in this office if she has to duel to the death over it.

She doesn’t. Sammy and Jack leave in the next few minutes.

Lily wishes she felt victorious. She doesn’t.

* * *

 

That day isn’t the end, but it was where the end became inevitable. There are more fights, more screaming matches, and at the end of it, a job offer.

Jack and Sammy are gone within the next four months, halfway across the country, back in fucking California of all places. Lily knows California as a whole is more progressive, but she doesn’t care, can only think of her childhood there and how it still stings her every day.

Lily’s twenty-seven years old and alone for the first time. Without family for the first time. She always said she’d be fine without her family, and she’d been without her parents for ten years now, and she’d been fine.

But being without Jack was like missing a limb.

Being without Sammy was like missing a less important limb, but a limb nonetheless.

For the first time, Lily is helpless, directionless, and without hope. Allison tries to help, but she can’t. This is Lily’s brother. Jack’s always been the most important person in Lily’s life, it’s been that way forever, it’s not going to change, not overnight, maybe not ever.

Lily stays at the studio, though. She stands her fucking ground no matter how miserable it makes her on the day to day. She hates her job, hates everything about it, has to drag herself there every day, but spite and rage motivate her when nothing else will.

It isn’t until she’s reassigned a new broadcast producer, Pippa James, that she’s finally able to feel like she means something again.

“I’m Pippa,” Pippa introduces herself in her first day of work. Pippa is tall and elegant and beautiful, with long dark hair tied back in a braid and soft features. “I’m going to be working with you from now on.”

“Lily,” Lily shakes her hand. Pippa doesn’t give her that look that most people do, like they know she’s a dyke on sight. Or maybe she does, but it comes with a warm smile instead of a distrusting frown. “Lily Wright.”

“I listened to your show when you were on in the evenings,” Pippa says with a friendly smile. “My girlfriend especially loved it.”

The word _girlfriend_ manages to warm even Lily’s coldness, and she can’t help but grin.

She falls in love with Pippa that day, in an entirely platonic sort of way. She falls in love with Pippa’s authenticity, the way she’s not afraid to quietly radiate her own energy. She isn’t afraid of who she is. She doesn’t keep things under wraps.

She makes everything easier – when Allison inevitably tells Lily that she just can’t do it anymore, that Lily’s gotten more and more distant and withdrawn, that she can’t expect Allison to give her help if she’s not accepting help, and they decide to take a break – Pippa holds Lily as she cries, gets to hear the whole story, Jack and Sammy and everything.

Pippa and her girlfriend Shannon are what get Lily through the next three years, until she and Pippa are hired by NPR.

She thinks it might be the happiest day of her life, the day they hear back about their show being picked up for national syndication, and she thinks she screams after he hangs up the phone.

“We got it!” She practically throws herself on top of Pippa and Pippa starts screaming, too, and then Shannon comes back into the room and they’re all screaming together.

“Are we moving to DC, then?” Pippa says, her smile huge and bright. “I’ve always wanted to…”

“Of course,” Shannon says, falling on the couch between them, an arm around each of their shoulders. “You can’t miss out on something this big, you want to be a real _part_ of it. And – well. We can get married there.”

Shannon gives Pippa a lovelorn look and Lily can’t help but laugh. “Did you honestly just propose in front of me? That’s such a lesbian thing to do.”

Still, it gets Lily thinking. She calls Allison to tell her goodbye – Allison tells her genuinely that she’s so happy for her, wishes her all the best, and Lily finds she can exchange the sentiment. She misses Allison, but understands why they’re not together anymore.

Lily still feels like she needs to do something, though, and it isn’t until she has a couple drinks in her that she realizes what it is.

She hasn’t spoken to either Jack or Sammy in almost three full years, and almost doesn’t let herself now – she doesn’t owe it to them. They could’ve reached out, too.

But she texts Jack to say _Hey. Just got a job at NPR. Moving to DC._

She throws her phone across the room, can’t look at it for hours, focuses on making dinner, watching TV, anything but the phone.

When she goes back to find the phone, there’s a new message from Jack. Just seeing it there makes her heart stutter in his chest.

_Wow. That’s amazing, Lily. So happy for you. Seriously._

Lily thinks about replying, and then she doesn’t.

* * *

 

She does text him three weeks later though, because she’s broken the ice, and also she sees online that Jack’s show won an award for producing, and that was his expertise.

The show Shotgun Saturday Nights is truly a travesty, content-wise, but there’s good producing. Jack’s doing a great job as always.

And Sammy – well, for what he’s hosting, he does a good job, but what he’s hosting is literal trash. Lily can’t believe anyone buys that act of his. Sammy’s about the furthest thing that Lily can think of from a macho man – she’s much more masculine than he’s ever been.

Lily would never text Sammy a congratulations but she can text Jack, so she does. She gets a reply almost right away.

_Thank you!! I wasn’t expecting it at all. How’s DC??_

The double use of punctuation seems like Jack’s trying to make sure that Lily knows he wants her to keep texting him, so she does.

_Really good. I like it a lot. Pippa and Shannon and I are still playing tourists._

She remembers that Jack doesn’t know who Pippa and Shannon are, which is very unsettling, and she quickly texts again.

 _Pippa’s my producer – Shannon’s her wife_.

She feels a little vindictive when she mentions having a producer that isn’t Jack, but he deserves it. He’s the one who left.

She isn’t expecting the next text.

_Can I call you?_

Lily hesitates, just for a second, then says _sure_.

She picks up on the third ring.

“Hey,” Jack’s voice rings through the phone, and it almost makes Lily tear up, and she’s not a crier in the slightest. But it’s been so long since she’s heard his voice.

“Hey,” Lily says, clearing her throat. “You’ll have to keep it quick, I have a meeting I have to get to.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jack says, a little scrambled. “I just – um – wanted to hear your voice, I guess. I’m super happy for you and your new job, by the way. When does your show premiere? What’s it called? I’ll definitely – definitely listen.”

“Next month,” Lily says. “It’s called – um, Wright On. Spelled like –”

“Wright,” Jack says, voice a little laughing. “That’s clever.”

“Yeah,” Lily says, wishing more than anything that it was clever because there were two of them and not just her. “How’s Shotgun Saturday Nights?”

“Good,” Jack says, and though his voice sounds upbeat, Lily thinks she detects some bluster there, but maybe that’s just her projection. “There was that award, which was – great. And we’re probably getting um, nationally syndicated soon.”

“Cool,” Lily says, a twist of insecurity going through her at that, but she was the one at NPR. Jack was producing for a fucking shock jock. “How’s – well, you know –”

“Sammy?” Jack says, his voice still light but much tenser. “He’s – he’s good.”

“Are you two still…”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “We’re still together.”

“Okay,” Lily says, swallowing anything insulting she could say.

“How’s Allison?” Jack asks and Lily almost laughs out loud.

“We broke up a long time ago,” Lily said. “Like, a year and half ago.”

“Oh,” Jack says, clearly surprised. “I didn’t – didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Lily says.

“Are you –” Jack clears his throat a couple of times. “Are you happy, Lily?”

He sounds so genuine, so honest, and Lily can hardly take it.

“I think I am now,” Lily says, and means it. This is all she’s ever wanted in her career. She doesn’t have a girlfriend, but she has Pippa and Shannon. She couldn’t ask for better friends. She doesn’t have her brother, but she’s learning to live without him. “What about you?”

“Yeah,” Jack says quietly, but he doesn’t hesitate. “I am.”

“Even with…” Lily hesitates but says it anyway. “Even with sh-sh- _Shotgun_ Sammy?”

Jack half-laughs. “Yeah. Even with him.”

“You do know you’re living a lie, right?” Lily says, because she can’t let old wounds heal.

Jack is silent, Lily thinks maybe she pissed him off and almost regrets him, but then Jack answers. “I’m going to Greece with my boyfriend for Christmas. Just because we’re not going to hold hands on the plane doesn’t make that any less real.”

“Just checking,” Lily says softly.

* * *

 

Jack texts her at least once every couple of weeks. Sometimes just a question to see how she’s doing, or a compliment about her show, or a picture of something he’s doing without commentary. Lily responds in kind, sending him pictures of her own from the places she travels for her new job, and sometimes Jack will call her late at night and they’ll talk about all the new adventures Lily has having, how she’s finally living her dream.

Lily likes to think that part of Jack wishes he was there with her, but it was enough just to be talking to him again, it was enough to know that maybe they’d be okay someday.

The last couple of times she calls, he’s on some new kick, some new project that he’s obsessing over, which is kind of nice to hear, actually, he used to do these research projects all the time when they were younger and were surrounded with less stress.

It’s paranormal-related because Jack is nothing if not ridiculous, about some small town in the middle of nowhere that’s apparently a hotbed for spiritual activity, and Lily lets Jack talk her ear off about it because it’s nice to hear his voice.

Lily calls him for the last time on January 14, 2015. She didn’t think much of it at the time, but afterwards, she can remember every detail with perfect clarity.

She’s at a bus stop. It’s frigidly cold, but she pulls a glove off to dial Jack up on her way home from work.

The call goes to voicemail. She usually just hangs up, tries again later, but she leaves a voicemail this time.

She doesn’t know if he ever heard the voicemail. She hopes he did. She hopes he knew he called her on what was probably the last day of his life. 

_Hey, Jack. It’s Lily. Just flew back from Amsterdam and I’m waiting for the bus home, thought I’d call you and see how your new year was. Amsterdam was great, got a lot of great interviews, Pippa and I got high like four different times. Definitely a great trip – no pun intended. Anyway, call me back when you get this._

She wishes she would’ve said she loved him. How fucking difficult would it have been to tack on an _I love you_ at the end of her message? How hard would it have been?

The police don’t call her until the seventeenth. She thought Jack was busy, or annoyed with her for some reason, was getting a little pissed that he was being so slow to get back to her, but when she gets the call, all of that evaporates.

“Lily Wright?” The officer on the phone asks her, and Lily tells him that he’s got the right woman. “This is Officer Johnson with the LAPD.”

“LA?” Lily says, already connecting this with Jack and Sammy, terror already growing in her chest. “I – I live in Washington, DC.”

“But your brother lives here, yes?” The officer asks and Lily can’t breathe. “Jack Wright?”

“Yes, he does,” Lily says quietly, strained.

“Right,” the officer says, then says. “Ms. Wright, your brother has been missing for over seventy-two hours. Do you have any idea where he might be? Has he contacted with you at all?”

Lily can’t breathe.

“No,” she whispers. “No, he hasn’t, I don’t –”

“Your parents live here in California, yes?” The officer asks and Lily immediately says “He wouldn’t go to them.”

“Yes, I’ve been told there’s a strained relationship,” the officer says. “Are your parents any sort of threat to Jack?”

“What? No,” Lily says, mind racing with possibilities. “No, absolutely not, they haven’t seen Jack in years. Officer, can you tell me what happened?”

The officer did.

He told her that they got a frantic call from Mr. Samuel Stevens on the morning of January fifteenth, saying that his roommate was missing, but it hadn’t been for even twenty-four hours, so there wasn’t anything the police could do. Mr. Stevens called again twenty-four hours later, and they dispatched officers.

Jack was gone. There was no trace of him. There was a packed bag in the hall. His car was still in the driveway. It had the key in it. It was still running.

There was a packed bag, the officer said, so they thought he likely left of his own volition. But the car left room for suspicion. So it’s an open missing person’s case, because no one has heard from him in three days.

No one has heard from him for four days, five days, six, a week, two weeks, three weeks, no one’s heard.

Lily flies down to California in the third week – she’s talked to the police on the phone. It’s a real case now, they’re really looking, but she wants to rip them a new one for not taking this seriously before now, for wasting precious time where Jack could have still been savable from whatever this was –

And she wants to kill Sammy for not _making them_ take this seriously. She wants to kill Sammy for letting whatever this was happen to Jack. She wanted to kill Sammy full stop.

Lily gets to the police station and she sees someone she doesn’t know arguing with the desk sergeant.

Then she realizes she does know him – it’s Sammy. She hasn’t seen Sammy, hasn’t talked to Sammy, in four years, and here he is, right in front of her, and she didn’t even recognize him.

He’s several shades paler than she remembers, with dark circles underneath his eyes, skinnier than she remembers too, like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. Maybe he hasn’t.

“Can you please just tell me if –” Lily’s close enough to hear Sammy’s rough voice croak at the officer, but she interrupts with a delicate clearing of her throat from behind him.

Sammy turns, Lily won’t wait for a reaction.

“The fuck are you doing here?” She says tightly, pushing past him to the desk sergeant. “Get the fuck out of here. You’ve had enough time to get answers, it’s my turn now. Officer, I want to speak to whoever’s in charge of my brother’s case. Jack Wright. I’m Lily, his sister.”

“You’re not going to get any more answers than me,” Sammy practically seethes from behind her. “They don’t know shit.”

“And,” Lily says, ignoring Sammy, “stop giving this man any information about Jack’s case. I don’t want him trusted with that.”

“You’ve got to be fucking with me,” Sammy says, grabbing Lily’s shoulder, but Lily shrugs him off. “You fucking bitch, how _fucking_ dare you do that to me?”

“Sir,” the officer started, his hand going for his weapon, but Lily turned to face Sammy before he could intervene.

“I can and I will,” Lily snarls back, eyes flashing. “How fucking dare _you_ let this shit happen to Jack? You’ve never done anything right in your life, how did I ever trust you to make sure my brother was alright? Fucking failure like you.”

Sammy’s face contorts in about ten different shapes before he says “You’re just mad that he chose me over you, that he loved me as much as he loved you, you could never _take_ that –”

“Oh, are you willing to say that out loud now?” Lily’s eyes flash and Sammy’s face suddenly stutters in place as if he only just realized that he didn’t just say that out loud in public, he practically shouted in the middle of a police station.

“I thought so,” Lily says coolly. “And he didn’t _choose_ you. You _took_ him from me. And now he’s gone. Probably forever. Missing people don’t come back, Stevens. God. I wish I’d never met you. Maybe my life would make sense without you. Maybe Jack would still be alive if he’d never met you.”

Sammy’s face breaks. Lily can’t even feel sympathy at this point, anger coursing through every piece of her.

“He’s not dead,” Sammy says, voice not wavering. “He can’t be dead.”

Lily laughs humorlessly. “Pretty sure he can be since no one’s heard from in three weeks.”

Sammy’s face drops, he takes a step closer to Lily. Lily almost steps away, but holds her ground. When Sammy speaks, it’s quiet, but just as tight and angry.

“He could’ve just left,” Sammy says, sounding like he’s holding back from choking on his words. “That’s what they keep telling me. This could be foul play – or he could have just left without a trace. And if he left of his own volition, they can’t do shit about it. And I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? If he left me.”

Lily can’t even answer, can’t even think about that, the possibility of Jack being out there still, of him just quitting and leaving his life. He’d done it once, but that had been different, that was Sammy, not Jack.

“Where would he go?” Lily says, quiet and sharp. “If he’s not with you and he’s not with me –”

“He was obsessed with this place,” Sammy says, not looking at Lily. “A small town in the Rocky Mountains with some supernatural shit. That was how it started. And then I watched him lose his fucking mind, Lily. He was out of his head. He stopped everything in his life, everything but this. He was getting voicemails – scratches and ticks – I took him to the fucking hospital when he – but he wouldn’t get help –”

“Not that I believe you’re telling the truth – but even if you are, that doesn’t sound to me like he made it to the Rocky Mountains,” Lily says, remembering Jack talking about King Falls with that excitement in his voice, but never something of that horrific level. “That sounds like he had some kind of stalker who killed him and left his body in a dumpster.”

“Fuck you, Lily,” Sammy laughs, completely without humor. “Can’t even have hope for a single goddamn second, can you? Always the pragmatist. But at least I was here. I was with him, through all of that. If he’s dead, I did everything I could to keep him alive. What the fuck did you do?”

The question follows Lily. What the fuck did she do?

* * *

 

The police can’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know. There’s no trace of Jack for four weeks, six weeks, two months. She goes back to DC, numb and broken.

There’s nothing. Lily has her ringer at full volume all the time, just in case he calls.

He’s dead. Lily knows that in her heart, but she still keeps the ringer all the way up.

Pippa holds her whenever Lily starts to break, lets Lily cry on her shoulder because she’s the only person Lily lets herself be at all vulnerable with, and only when she’s drunk.

When Pippa’s not available as a shoulder, Lily drinks and listens to Shotgun Saturday Nights, listens to Sammy Stevens fall apart at the seams, always sounding like he’s at least as drunk as she is, and it fills her with a kind of vindictive pleasure, or maybe just comfort in knowing someone else is breaking.

 Until suddenly, there is no more Shotgun Saturday Nights. Until another show takes over the timeslot.

Lily goes on the website, tries to find when the show was switched to, but it’s just gone without a trace.

She calls the station they broadcast out of, asks the secretary what happened to the show. She gets a textbook answer, but it’s more than she had until now.

_Oh, yes, Shotgun Saturday Nights was cancelled recently. These things happen, you know, hosts and producers get busy, have other projects, their contracts are over. I can direct you to our other programming –_

So Sammy had quit. He’d left. Again. He always ran when things got too tough. What a fucking surprise.

Lily calls his number when she’s at her drunkest.

The number is disconnected.

Lily doesn’t know where to go from there, doesn’t know who would possibly know what the fuck happened to Sammy Stevens.

She flies down to LA on a whim, goes directly to the radio station and asks for the manager. She has a look in her eye that says they better not tell her no, and she’s directed to the office of Phil Mollison.

“Hey there,” Phil says when Lily arrives at his office. “I was told someone from NPR wanted to see me? What is this about?”

“Not NPR,” Lily says, blunt as ever. Phil blinks, but gestures at her to continue. “Sammy Stevens. He used to host a show here. Where’d he go?”

The look on Phil’s face becomes distinctly uncomfortable. “Oh, I really can’t –”

“Mr. Mollison, I’m Jack Wright’s sister,” Lily says, knowing that she can play the sympathy card to get what she wants in this situation.

Phil’s eyes go wide and gentle, just like Lily’s used to from everyone around her. “Oh. I’m so, so sorry. That was – an awful situation. I’m afraid I really don’t know – about Sammy. He went out of control after your brother – well. He bought himself out of his contract, left LA entirely from what I’ve heard. I heard a rumor that he went to a small station out of state, in the middle of nowhere – but that’s unsubstantiated…”

“I know where he is,” Lily says quietly. Of course. Sammy’s in King Falls, because if Jack’s still alive, that’s where he is.

Sammy does love Jack. Lily understands that. Can’t accept it most of the time, but understands it, because she loves Jack too. Jack’s an easy guy to love, accept when it’s so fucking hard to love him, like on days like today, like every day for the rest of Lily’s life.

Lily leaves LA, goes to DC, doesn’t stop off in the middle of the country to make the trek to King Falls. She doesn’t need to know what’s there.

Going after Sammy would be meaningless, just another screaming match. If Sammy wants to waste his life, fine. But Lily knows Jack would want her to keep living hers.

It’s funny. Lily’s always wanted to be her own person, have her own identity outside of Jack – and now she has that. She’ll have that for the rest of her life. She doesn’t have a brother anymore.

It’s the worst feeling she’s ever experienced.

* * *

 

It takes two years. She stays where she is. She drinks a lot of bourbon. She drunk-texts Allison. She drinks more bourbon. She reports on stories that mean something.

She makes a name for herself, the kind she always dreamed about. She’s respected and liked and even adored by people who have never met her.

She beat Jack. Finally more likable. Because Jack’s dead and no one likes you when you’re dead.

It means nothing, of course, nothing means anything anymore.

But two years later, Pippa’s hand is soft on her shoulder and she tells her “Another request for a King Falls episode. Are you sure –?”

Lily always says _I’m sure_. But doing nothing hurts too much. Doing something might hurt more, but she’ll never know if she doesn’t try.

“Let’s go,” Lily says, suddenly determined, and Pippa tells her how proud she is of her.

Maybe if Lily finds out what happened, can construct a narrative, can tell a story, like she’s so good at with other stories, maybe then she can finally live with herself.

She forgets almost everything when she sees Sammy Stevens again.

Hearing his voice on the phone, tight and angry and unforgiving, was bad enough. But when she walks into the outdated AM radio shack and sees him in a spindly chair drinking from a coffee mug, she’s overcome with a thousand emotions that all crystalize into something that’s close to anger, but not quite. It’s sadder than anger.

He’s different. Even more different than he was at the police station. His hair was longer than Lily had ever seen it, greasy and pulled back in a messy bun. He’s got a kind of half-beard – he used to clean shaven. He’s wearing mismatched plaid, having a quiet argument with the man next to him who Lily knows his Ben Arnold, his face set in hard lines.

Ben looks up, sees Lily, smiles brightly and waves.

Ben seems genuine. Lily doesn’t want to hate him, but she does.

Sammy looks up, doesn’t meet her eye, not quite. There’s something hard and haunted there that Lily thinks is reflected in her own face.

This, Lily thinks, is the man who effectively killed her brother. Not literally – but it was his fault that Lily didn’t have a brother anymore. And yet he was the only thing in the world that Lily still had left of her brother. He was the only piece of Jack Wright that was left in this world other than Lily herself.

It was an awful conundrum.

Lily knows from the look on Sammy’s face, that’s what he sees in her, too. A piece of Jack. Lily wonders if Sammy’s ever told anyone about Jack, if enthusiastic little Ben Arnold knows that his broadcast partner’s gay or not.

Of course not. Sammy’s nothing if not a coward. A quitter. A failure.

“Wow, Ms. Wright – I mean Lily,” Ben jumps up from his seat, shakes her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you in person. And you must be Pippa James, her producer. So wonderful for you guys to come meet us here today. I’m Ben.”

“Nice to meet you, Ben,” Pippa replies with a smile from behind Lily. “And who’s your friend here?”

Sammy doesn’t respond. Ben clears his throat, answers for him. “Oh, that’s my partner. Sammy. He’s – um – feeling – under the weather.”

“I feel fine,” Sammy says, half-glaring at Ben. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Charming as always,” Lily can’t help but bite, and Pippa and Ben look at her, surprised. Neither of them know the history here. Lily’s never been able to get the words out around Pippa.

Because the truth is, Lily’s always seen her identity as endlessly tangled with Jack, but now that Jack’s dead, that’s just not true anymore. But Sammy’s here. Sammy’s all she has of her brother. And so now her identity is tangled up with Sammy’s, unable to escape. But he can’t escape either. They’re each other’s respective black holes.

They can’t live without each other.

Lily knows that, knows that fully and well and consciously. But that doesn’t stop her from biting in Sammy’s direction “So very nice to meet you in person, Mr. Stevens. Mr. Arnold.”

Sammy’s lip curls, but he plays along. He’ll always play along. “The pleasure’s all mine.”


End file.
